Monday, January 24, 2011

My kids think he is the next best thing to Santa Claus. He's the AT&T service guy who came to hook up cable to our two TVs this afternoon.

The great cable-free experiment lasted almost five months. If it were up to me, we would have continued on with only local channels, Netflix and Hulu. But I was outnumbered and after 17 years of marriage I know which battles to spend my energy on.

To be fair, it seemed that every time there was a football game on we wanted to watch, the signal would blink and freeze and blur. What's worse, the local channels we could receive did not include the one channel that shows most of the Butler Bulldog games. And not having cable made me realize just how few good shows there are for the post-PBS Kids set. Regular TV offers either shows meant for very young viewers or shows for grownups. Not a lot in between -- though I don't intend to give up our Wheel of Fortune habit.

So, we are once again a cable-watching family. We have the basic package which includes The Food Network (oh, how I've missed Chopped!), but oddly does not include TLC, so if the Duggars have any more kids I won't be able to keep up.

Probably the best part about the return of the cable -- aside from the whining of the kids stopping -- is that I have my DVR back. I've already set it to record Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, The Middle, Modern Family, Chopped and Iron Chef America.

We gave it the good ol' college try, but I guess it just goes to show you can take the family out of the cable habit, but you just can't take the cable out of the family.

5
comments:

I've never even brought up cancelling our dish. My husband would flip. We have a middle of the road package so he can have HGTV, DIY, etc. Not a battle worth fighting! I did FINALLY convince him to cancel our home phones though so some can be won eventually.

It is for exactly your reasons we haven't canceled our cable yet either. The boys can't get hockey games without the cable hook-up. And life as we know it would end if we missed even one Pittsburgh Penguins game, you know.

We cut our cable back to local channels and internet access. Haven't missed it yet. Still have a VCR, too! I guess we are kind of backwards over here. The TV isn't HD and we don't have a DVR or BluRay.